Aviation Weather Workshop/Course?

CC268

CC268

Final Approach
Joined
Nov 4, 2015
Messages
5,532
Display Name
Display name:
CC268
Being from Arizona I feel like my knowledge of weather is lacking. I'm taking my IFR checkride in about 3 weeks and I feel like weather is the one area I am lacking in a bit (ironic considering I am getting my IR).

I want to do an online weather workshop of some sort. Something that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. I don't mind paying for good content, but I don't want to spend $300-500 either. AvWxWorkshops looks nice, but it looks to be a bunch of individual topics you have to pay for (and at $50+ a piece this would be insanely expensive). I would rather have some sort of course that I can follow.
 
Weather Channel is free, no? Jim Cantore explains it pretty good. I mean look at those biceps! He's so buffed...

436bf5a3896ebdfb6e98f880091c6ae3.jpeg
 
mscard88 said:
Weather Channel is free, no? Jim Cantore explains it pretty good. I mean look at those biceps! He's so buffed...

436bf5a3896ebdfb6e98f880091c6ae3.jpeg
Click to expand...

Maybe I will go back to college to become a meteorologist.
 
I learned weather by looking at the radar and storm charts every day, and planning a flight. Read the PIREPS. I also looked at the forecasts, which are actually pretty accurate. I learned where the country's storms come from, how fast they tend to move, and the consequences of a storm (both precipitation and wind) on my flying. I also learned a lot by actually flying the routes I had been studying, flying routes around storms and a few times being laid over, waiting the storm out (with nothing to do but watch the weather charts). You can learn a lot just studying the weather radar, satallite photos and forecasts and watching the storms as they move across the country. Calling and talking to Flight Service helps also. And you can still do that. Those guys, if you get a good one, know a lot.
 
coloradobluesky said:
I learned weather by looking at the radar and storm charts every day, and planning a flight. Read the PIREPS. I also looked at the forecasts, which are actually pretty accurate. I learned where the country's storms come from, how fast they tend to move, and the consequences of a storm (both precipitation and wind) on my flying. I also learned a lot by actually flying the routes I had been studying, flying routes around storms and a few times being laid over, waiting the storm out (with nothing to do but watch the weather charts). You can learn a lot just studying the weather radar, satallite photos and forecasts and watching the storms as they move across the country. Calling and talking to Flight Service helps also. And you can still do that. Those guys, if you get a good one, know a lot.
Click to expand...

Yea I try to do this and go on aviationweather.gov which is a great site. I guess I just feel under experienced with weather. Every day is sunny and clear in the ole state of Arizona. Actually kind of tired of it. The weather we do get is typically weather you don't want to be anywhere near when flying. Sometimes I wish I would have done my IR on the east coast or something where clouds and rain actually exist :(.

But thanks I will keep working on it.
 
Well, imagine that you are based at a different airport in a different climate zone and look at the weather there. California has very good small plane IFR flying weather and has 5 different climate zones with lots of possibilities. Try Fresno.
 
CC268 said:
Yea I try to do this and go on aviationweather.gov which is a great site. I guess I just feel under experienced with weather. Every day is sunny and clear in the ole state of Arizona. Actually kind of tired of it. The weather we do get is typically weather you don't want to be anywhere near when flying. Sometimes I wish I would have done my IR on the east coast or something where clouds and rain actually exist :(.

But thanks I will keep working on it.
Click to expand...

This is pretty good and easy to comprehend:

https://www.gleimaviation.com/resources/weather/
 
mscard88 said:
This is pretty good and easy to comprehend:

https://www.gleimaviation.com/resources/weather/
Click to expand...

I mean I have taken one of the King IFR weather courses. I am very comfortable reading any of the aviation weather charts, but I just don't feel like I know weather as a whole at a deeper level. Maybe that isn't needed, but I feel like it can't hurt. I will look more into the Gleim stuff. Maybe I know more than I think and I am selling myself a little short, but I am the type who likes to really know things on a deeper level. The whys of everything.
 
coloradobluesky said:
Well, imagine that you are based at a different airport in a different climate zone and look at the weather there. California has very good small plane IFR flying weather and has 5 different climate zones with lots of possibilities. Try Fresno.
Click to expand...

Yea I would have liked to have made it over to Cali and flown in the marine layer or something. I will do it with an instructor one of these days.
 
One big reason weather forecasting has improved (and it has improved) is they obtained a HUGE historical database of weather at thousands of locations. They look at those locations and locate similar conditions that existed in the past and then look at what that weather did. So its pretty much just based on past experience. When a front is coming from there, and it has these other fronts around it, its usually headed that way and it will probably do what it usually has done in the past.

There are some useful things to know, like ice can form in air that is above freezing and water can stay water and not freeze when the water itself is below freezing. Supercooled droplets of water make that happen.That one surprised me and was actually contrary to what I was taught in school science classes. And none of my instructors seemed to understand it very well.
 
Last edited:
Yes, good preflight weather checking is important, from any number of sources.

The next biggie is near ‘real time’ weather in the cockpit as one flys. No need to lament if the data is 3-12 minutes old, still better than two hours ago. The last ingredient is the discipline to act upon the given weather once in flight.
 
Avwxworkshops is great. Ive personally trained with Scott and use his site every day. Worth every penny.
 
scottd said:
Actually there are nearly 80 basic workshops you get with the subscription and you’ll have seamless access to my Internet Wx Brief Roadmap, a very comprehensive suite of high resolution weather guidance. And I sell several premium workshops that explore topics like the Skew-T diagram, icing, turbulence and finding cloud tops just to name a few. These premium workshops go into much greater depth and all my workshops provides training that’s tailored specifically for pilots. I’m also working on an app that will allow you view this on portable devices and will include a vertical route profile. The app will be free to subscribers when released in a few months.

You may want to attend one of my live two day weekend workshops. Focuses on integrating weather guidance using scenario based training. I’m holding a workshop in Portland, Milwaukee, Williamsport, Houston and Charlotte this year.
Click to expand...

Hmm maybe I will check out the subscription then. Thanks for the info
 
There's a pretty good book I picked up. I'm at work so trying to remember but think it is called "Weather Flying". A pilot wrote it, and his son, also a pilot added to it. It doesn't go into "Fohn effect" (or maybe does but doesn't explain it), and cold fronts, warm fronts as far as the "mechanics" or how it all works, I think it is assumed you know about adiabatic lapse rate, etc.

But what I got most out of it is the way he believes a pilot should think about weather. How to plan, how to best use the data, and also as an ongoing check that the prediction is or isn't panning out as planned and what to do about it.

Other than that, I mainly used my (norwegian..ugh) textbook from Ground School, I have reread it a few times already, and also the FAA pilots knowledge book, and then online explanations, and also youtube has a great deal of weather turorials that I thought a lot of them were VERY good.

And after all that, I still have inner discussions most every day on what kind of clouds there are up there now, and what causes them, and if they are signs of turbulence, and have no good way to check if I'm right or wrong...so..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top